Four Steps To A Family History Timeline

Screenshot of a Timeline from Treelines Sample Wizard

Timelines are amazing tools for family historians. They have
the ability to serve us on many levels. At the

most very basic level, they are
a great way to organize our family history information. However, if done in detail
and with much thought they can serve as a brainstorming device to help us unlock
brick walls. They can help reveal gaps in our research and link world events to
family history events. They are my first go to tool before writing any family
history story. They are imperative in helping me structure and outline a family
history for storytelling. That’s a lot
of heavy lifting in one simple tool. Timelines
allow you to layer a life, each layer adding to the depth of your ancestor’s
story. Below is a simple four step
process to a creating a family history timeline.

Four Steps to Creating a Family History Timeline

1. Identify
the Ancestor you wish to plot.

Now you certainly can plot a family, or a
surname but this becomes much more complicated. If you are new to timelines, I
would suggest starting with one ancestor.

2. Choose your
tool.

There are many options available to the
family historian today for developing timelines. You can go old school and scratch
it out on a piece of paper; chalkboard and whiteboards are great devices. Mind
mapping programs can make beautiful timelines my favourite program is iMindMap.
Of course, you can keep it simple, using word or excel spreadsheets, not as
pretty and creative but they get the job done. Then there are the online
programs for creating timelines such as Treelines and Timetoast, two of my favourites.
Choose the tool that you are most
comfortable with, any tool you choose should not be a hindrance but a help, use
the one that works for you.

3.Create Your Categories

It’s important to make sure all the
important events that occurred in your ancestor’s life are accounted for on
your timeline. Here is my set of categories that I consider when developing a
timeline. As you add each category to the timeline, you see the layers of a
life come into focus.

Ancestor’s
Vitals – births, marriage and deaths, not only of the ancestor in question but
also of any relevant person in their lives. Don’t forget the effect the birth
and or death of a child, spouse or parent would have on an ancestor.

Ancestor’s
Life Highlights – in this category I include, migration, jobs, purchase of
land and military.

Regional
Events – much like world events, but these may only affect those living in
specific part of the world, state, province or county. They still would include
political, social, economic and environmental influences.

Local
Events – again same as above, but now were pulling our focus in even closer
to the town, village, neighbourhood or street that your ancestor lived on. What
political, social, economic and environmental events would have affected them
on such an up-close and personal level?

4. Identify Your Time Frame. Before you’re ready to get started, identify the time frame
you want to address on your timeline. Perhaps it’s going to be an ancestor’s
entire life, that’s fine, but don’t be afraid to really zero in on one particular time in
their life, one decade even one year or
a single day. All are options to use on a timeline to help draw focus to your
ancestor’s life. It all depends on how you plan to use the information in your timeline.

Remember while timelines are lovely to look at they are a tool that can serve
to breaking down brick walls, organizing your research, identifying missing
information and organizing and telling a story.

I'd love to add www.SaveEveryStep.com to your resources list!! Specifically designed to help families capture their stories chronologically, living or dead(!) you can make multiple timelines for unlimited family members, and it's free to get started

You say 'Mind mapping programs can make beautiful timelines'. Interesting - I've used mindmaps and mindmapping software (first Mindjet, now Mindmeister) since the turn of the millenium but I'd never associated mindmaps with timelines (timecircles?). I'd love to see an example.

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